Favored Columbia Quintet Invades

Tonight's basketball doubleheader at the Arena should prove one of the season's best. The varsity five moves onto the floor at 7:45 p.m. with hopes of ending its recent slump by beating Columbia. At 9:30 p.m. Holy Cross, in its last Boston appearance, takes on Boston College.

Columbia, after drubbing Dartmouth 74 to 56 at Hanover Saturday night, took over third place in the Ivy League with a four three record, making its overall mark 14-7. In league contests the Lions have split with Princeton and Yale, beaten Dartmouth and Penn, and lost to Cornell.

Coach Gordon Ridings' team operates very much like the Crimson. A pair of five-foot-ten guards, Sherry Marshall and Al Kaplan, work the ball on a fast break attack into the lanky double pivots, John Azary and Frank Lewis.

The veteran Marshall is one of the league's veteran Marshall as well as a consistent scorer. Azary, six-foot-five, who has been held down in league play, leads the Lions' scoring, along with Norm Skinner, the other front line flanker.

Defence Effective

The Lions' man-to-man defense has proved the most effective in the league, having, held the opposition to a 53 point-per-game average. In its best which scored 70 against Harvard, to 37 points. The Lions have been particularly effective against teams lacking a strong set shooting game.

A lot hinges on this game for the Crimson. With only six more contests remaining (all of them Ivy League), the season is rapidly running out for the varsity. Last week's two losses to Penn 95 to 77 and 77 to 66 were discouraging.

However, Coach Norm Shepard considers that in the second Penn game the team showed "definite signs of snapping out of its post-Dartmouth game slump, particularly in the last half."

Coach Floyd Wilson's freshman team meets Nichols Junior College at 4 p.m. today in the Blockhouse. HARVARD  COLUMBIA Rockwell  1f  Azary Crosby  rf  Skinner Smith  c  Lewis Hickey  rg  Kaplan Murphy  1g  Marshall